Expanding More On The Strength Training Pyramid

Hello all,

In the last newsletter I talked about the strength training pyramid and the various levels that are necessary to build an athlete.

In this issue, I want to briefly touch upon the term "stiffness" in terms of how it is applied to training reflexively . Remember, training reflexively means the ability to absorb force maximally while initiating minimal ground contact.

An example that strength and conditioning specialist Andrew Paul of University of Missouri-Columbia gives is one of an elite sprinter.

"The foot strikes the track and immediately absorbs a massive amount of force with the tendons and connective tissue. It then halts the force and then redirects the force to propel the athlete down the track in about 0.1 seconds."

Good stuff, huh?!

Now because athletes are required to absorb forces at all ranges of motion and do it extremely quickly in their particular sport, then they must be trained accordingly.

Back tracking to the term stiffness,if you think of a back squat and how some athletes will only go as low as their body will let them, then that is where their functional range of motion kicks in.

And yes that is the stiffness effect. The lengthening of your connective tissue as well as the muscle belly reaching its full functional range of motion has stopped you from absorbing full force of the movement (butt below parallel.

To work on increasing/lengthening connective tissue and tendon so that you have the ability to absorb force to increase your power, then try squatting to different positions.

Such as:

1.Full squat

2.1/2 squat

3.1/4 squat

4.1/8 squat

By building elasticity of our muscle complex in this type of example, you will create/build more force and the more force or power we can absorb, the more force or power we will demonstrate in our game.